By Lupita Franco Peimbert

The Gustavo Dudamel concert at the San Francisco Symphony over Thanksgiving weekend was extraordinary. The first piece was “Kauyumari” which in Huichol means “Blue Deer,” by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, followed by the presentation of Jorge Glem and his rendition of “Odisea” by Gonzalo Grau, along with the symphony. The experience culminated with Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2. The public was ecstatic!

Born in Venezuela, Gustavo Dudamel is an acclaimed composer and the current director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. In 2026, he will become the music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic.

It is said that Dudamel is driven by the belief that music has the power to transform lives. He transforms himself when conducting, bringing a dynamic force to the stage, vibrating with every sound but also engaging with each one of the musicians, eye to eye, as he moves the baton and his hands for whatever he pleases: rhythm, speed, emotion, emphasis or expression.

“Kauyumari” sounded eclectic. The piece depicts the tense yet discreet movement of a blue deer. In the Huichol tradition, the blue deer is a spiritual guide whose metamorphosis into a small, hallucinogenic caucus known as peyote, allows people to enter sacred dimensions and heal. Gabriela Ortiz was commissioned to compose this piece in the aftermath of the pandemic, and Ortiz thought this legend to be the perfect symbol for a journey of healing.

The second piece “Odisea,” by Venezuelan composer Gonzalo Grau, seeks to blend –or at least intertwine, the sound of the cuatro llanero with classical music. Jorge Glem, a Latin Grammy award winner and one of the best cuatro players, leads the way on a musical journey that illustrates a trip from the East to the West of Venezuela, showing the musical sounds of rural and urban life, wildlife, and bustling streets. It is amazing to see classical musicians accommodating to instruments and sounds from other musical traditions and creations. Most of the time this blending adventure worked, providing the public with an unusual experience. But at times, the flow between the cuatro and the symphony felt forced ––perhaps it was a good melodic intention that couldn’t, just couldn’t fully align. Overall, it was beautiful to hear. Actually, it was more than beautiful. It was invigorating, and it provided a feeling of adventure.

Glem also gave the San Francisco audience a solo performance after Odisea, showing how talented and skilled he is, and how masterfully he plays the cuatro and its four strings (hence the name of the instrument: cuatro, which means four in Spanish). The cuatro is somewhere in between a guitar and a ukulele, attributed to Puerto Rico, but also to Venezuela and other countries where it is popular.

Dudamel then conducted Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2, in D major, Opus 73, written in 1877 and encompassing several pieces. Brahms composed it during one of his stays in Lake Wörth in Southern Austria, in summer. Symphony 2 includes an allegro non-troppo, an adagio non-troppo, an allegretto grazioso, and an allegro con spirito, all involving instructions on tempo and other musical conventions.

And here again, Dudamel as the conductor engages with the other players intensely. Conductors must connect with symphonic musicians, but Dudamel goes a little further. Dudamel externalizes a back-and-forth connection, focusing in a particular group: the cello players, the violinists, the percussionists, or the tubist, or the harpist, absorbing and exuding an exchange of codes and energy information that only they know. Dudamel looks at the symphony’s musicians eye-to-eye, forgetting and even disregarding anything else but the untapped magic forming every second and every moment with, at the same time, the one sound a musician creates, and the many sounds the symphony converges. And in that dance, Dudamel moves, dances, jumps a little bit and gives all of himself to the music, the musicians, and ultimately the people conforming to the audience who receive the end result of this musically funneled exchange of creativity that only artists can make possible.

Dudamel creates magic and connection whether it is by means of a classical piece or a popular song, convoluted or simple, and the entwine of instruments created in so-called high or low places, literally and figuratively speaking. One of his strong points, in my opinion, is how he looks at the musicians under his baton, making them feel seen and present, and the respect he pays to them.

Musically formed in Venezuela, Dudamel is one of the few classical musicians who also promotes pop culture and the entwining of the two worlds, as an experiment and adventure in unity. He believes in opening the door of classical music to all audiences and has publicly said “We have to go and show these people what classical music is. We say sometimes that classical music has a small audience, but it’s because people don’t have the chance to be closer to it.”

Most of all, his main goal is to bring joy to this world. And that is exactly what he did in San Francisco, with the Symphony, over Thanksgiving weekend, to those who bought tickets as soon as possible months earlier, at higher prices and sold out concerts, in one of the most anticipated performances of the year. Dudamel, indeed, brings joy and inspiration through his extraordinary talent and humanity.